Monday, February 22, 2010

The Cautionary Tale of a Young Doodler

 

Dear Ned,

I’m such a fan of yours that I feel compelled to write you about me problem. I find meself in a peculiar situation, which troubles me greatly and from which I see no escape. This peculiar situation has cost me me job and me privacy, and brought me unwanted attention from worldwide media. Although I am now considerably richer than before, I pine relentlessly for me former life in which I was a lowly-paid administrative assistant civil servant of the 14th grade (an entry level slash typing pool type of situation), whom nobody knew or indeed wanted to. But now I find meself hounded by the media who pursue me from dawn to dusk, recording the most mundane events of me daily life (the other day I found a YouTube video of me taking the garbage out! – 227, 357 hits in three hours) and go to great lengths to secure personal items, such as me toenail clippings, to hawk on eBay. Only someone like you, dear Ned, who has undoubtedly suffered similar indignities, can understand the anguish I am going through. I sincerely hope you will be able to help.

     All this palaver started when I’d inadvertently entered an arts competition.  You see, I used to have an insignificant administrative post at a famous cultural institute in me city – I won’t tell you where it is but if I told you the name of this institution you would recognize it immediately – and up until recently was quite happy there, performing me duties diligently and with the sort of enthusiasm one can expect from an eighteen-year-old high school dropout. The tasks I was charged with were very simple, reflecting me age and the entry level position I was in.  All I had to do was register people for various courses and events the institute has to offer. There never was much interest as we live in a coastal town where the beaches are close and the weather is good, and where most people like to drink beer and barbecue on the weekends, so really, I mostly had bugger all to do. I napped a lot or else watched YouTube surfing videos. On the odd occasion where there was an inquiry, I dealt with it as I’d been conditioned to do – I sent them to a link on our website or else I promised to send them info in the mail, a promise I hardly ever fulfilled as I was usually too busy doodling when I was talking to people on the phone so I’d forget to take down their address. As nobody ever complained (attending arty ‘dos’ are the sort of flights of fancy most folks do not take seriously so it’d be easy to forget you’d requested a pamphlet about them), I spent me days aimlessly doodling.  Thinking nothing, doing nothing, it was a bloody good way to spend the working day. Or so I thought. Little did I know that it would be these aimless doodles that would prove to be the bane of me existence in the end!

     Wouldn’t you know it, dear Ned, but I got quite good with the doodling – nothing fancy, mainly stick figures and smiley faces in pencil or pen or, on the odd occasion when I couldn’t find one in me drawer, a highlighter or a stray crayon I found in the auditorium, depicting simple themes reflecting me interests – stick figures on surf boards, in the waves, making beer bottle pyramids on the beach, making out with stick figure girls – you name it, I drew it. Then one day I had a particularly long phone conversation with a keen supporter of the arts who was a wee bit deaf, so I managed to cover an entire A3 sheet I had on me desk lying in front of me. I can’t tell you what I had intended to draw originally but by the time I finished the call, the paper was covered with doodles from top to bottom, side to side. Me doodles that day tended more to the abstract, reflecting the strong feelings I had experienced during that fateful conversation. I did throw in a couple of solid pieces, such as a clenched fist, and one with the middle finger raised, a bleeding heart with a knife sticking out of it, and a few doodles of a coarser nature featuring  bits of human male anatomy locked in other bits of human male anatomy. Looking at the sheet, I found the entire repertoire of human emotions reflected there – from impatience to anger, to rage, to murderous intent – a crescendo of feelings I never would have thought possible to find hidden inside me but there you have it, Ned, it was there, right in front of me stapler, for me to behold. As this was closing time and I had a hot date, I foolishly left the paper there and went home. And that’s where I went wrong.

     In the morning, I fronted up for work as per usual, ready for a nap after a big night, only to find the gallery director, the curator and the head of the department assembled around me desk, pondering me doodles with a serious air. Cut a long story short, they entered me in the competition under Contemporary, and I won!  I did! I won a shitload of money and a new job – I am now the Artist in Residence in the under 30 category. Me days now are considerably busier since I’ve taken up me new post – no amount of pleading with the brass spared me this, even though I owned up I never had any training or indeed interest in the fine arts, the doodling being the result of a boring desk job with little outside stimulation, the brass decided I take up the job if only to avert a scandal which could see the entire panel of judges sacked – and so here I am teaching art to young emerging artists, visiting school assemblies, feigning interest in opening art galleries and other such nonsense, on a daily basis. It’s driving me bonkers, dear Ned. All I want is to get me old job back and keep the prize money. After all, I earned it.

Yours respectfully,

P. Casso, Artist-in-Residence

 

Ned’s reply:

Dear P. Casso,

I’ve seen your doodles on YouTube. It’s shit so it’s only inevitable you have a great future in the contemporary arts. Bow to your destiny, my friend, and stop complaining. Milk it for all you can; cushy art jobs are hard to come by.

Respectfully, Ned

 

Nedsresponse.JPG

 

::: 

Sunday, February 21, 2010

decentRansomFinal.jpg
A Decent Ransom is now in 272 libraries worldwide. Laughing
::: 

Monday, February 8, 2010

Ivana got some new mail from a satisfied reader! How lovely and thank you so much! Sealed
::: 

Saturday, February 6, 2010

Ivana has a new email address!  You know books are selling well when there's news like this! LaughingTongue outSmile
::: 

Monday, January 25, 2010

To find out how things are going, go to News & Events on this website...Smile
::: 

Monday, December 21, 2009

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year 2010! Kiss
::: 

Wednesday, November 18, 2009

decentRansomFinal.jpg
 
A Decent Ransom is now available in 271 libraries worldwide. Smile
::: 

Tuesday, November 3, 2009

 

decentRansomFinal.jpg
 

 

 A Decent Ransom is now available  in 270 libraries worldwide...LaughingWinkCool

::: 

Monday, November 2, 2009

Bookpromotion4.JPG
::: 

Saturday, October 31, 2009

halloween2.JPG
::: 

Wednesday, October 21, 2009

Bookpromotion3.JPG
::: 

Sunday, October 18, 2009

Bookpromotion2.JPG
::: 

Friday, October 9, 2009

 
Quiet, please! A reading in progress!
 
Bookpromotion6.JPG
::: 

Thursday, October 8, 2009

 

 

Out there to spread the word...
 
Bookpromotion5.JPG

 

::: 

Tuesday, October 6, 2009

bookpromotion20.JPG

A Decent Ransom is now available to read in 268 libraries worldwide. And the good news doesn't end there ...Laughing

 



 

::: 

Sunday, September 27, 2009

A Decent Ransom is now showing in 266 libraries worldwide. Available in book and electronic form. LaughingWinkTongue out
::: 

Saturday, September 19, 2009

A Decent Ransom is now in 265 libraries worldwide. LaughingLaughingLaughing

pinkivana.JPG

::: 

Sunday, September 6, 2009

The Slightly Amusing Tale of Desperately Boring Mike
 
Dear Ned,

First of all, let me tell you how much I enjoy reading your column 'Ned's Guide to Feeling Socially Adequate', which I read religiously every weekend. The advice you so freely dispense to all the misfits that write you, dear Ned, has been a great help to me over the years, so now, finding myself in the midst of a personal crisis of my own, I figure you're the only person who could possibly help me. Here's what I'm worried about. I have no sense of humour. My inability to be funny really interferes with my social life as I never get to be the life of the party. 'There goes boring Mike' follows me like the plague and I'm told that I'm just as deadly if not as popular. I try to learn jokes but I always forget the punch line; when we play charades, I have the bad luck of getting things like 'rotting wood' (what do you do?) or Richard the Third (I don't have to tell you what I had to do for clues for this one, suffice to say I was thrown out of the party for making lewd gestures). Really, my social life is nothing but a trial.

Only last week I asked this nice girl (she was temping at the Tax Office where I work) out for a meal as I reckoned since we hadn't had a chance to talk during office hours, she wouldn't have figured out she'd be bored by me at dinner and she would accept out of sheer ignorance. Well, of course, the evening was a disaster. As usual, I was too nervous to talk about any of the amusing topics I had prepared earlier, such as the flying patterns of migrating geese or the many intricacies of the reproductive system of the common shrew, so instead I talked about work. I went into the nitty gritty of computerized account keeping and even threw in complaint handling procedures for good measure; it was such a boring evening even I surprised myself, I reflected later, when I went over the details as I walked home alone, having put the unfortunate girl half-dead into a cab right after the main course.

Predictably, she ditched me as soon as she could. She wouldn't hear of ordering a dessert, citing a strict diet regime, and I had no recourse but to go along with it, even though she clearly was lying, being a girl with such a healthy appetite. Indeed, she had ploughed through her meal with extraordinary speed; one would have thought she hadn't eaten all week. Anyway, at the cab rank, I didn't get my goodnight kiss because I suspect she didn't want to give me one and, at any rate, I was too busy talking about the induction we all had to go through when we first started at the Tax Office, and I even told her she'd have to undergo a fire drill, and I was just about to say she'd have to use the fire exit steps and not the elevator but I didn't get the chance because she just opened the door of the car and jumped right in, and the driver took off as if he too had a fire drill to complete. I don't even know if this was a proper cab. It might have been but who knows? She might have just jumped into someone's car willy nilly just to be rid of me. Ah well, there you have it, Ned. I'm boring myself now reiterating this to you, so please, help.

Desperately Boring Mike

 
Ned's reply:

Dear Desperately Boring Mike,

Having read your letter with a great deal of intere........zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz Innocent
 
Nedsresponse.JPG

 
 
::: 

Tuesday, September 1, 2009

A Decent Ransom is now in 263 libraries worldwide. Laughing
::: 

Sunday, August 9, 2009

A Decent Ransom is now in 261 libraries worldwide.LaughingLaughingCool
::: 

2010.02.21 | 2010.02.07 | 2010.01.31 | 2010.01.24 | 2009.12.20 | 2009.11.15 | 2009.11.01 | 2009.10.25 | 2009.10.18 | 2009.10.04 | 2009.09.27 | 2009.09.13 | 2009.09.06 | 2009.08.30 | 2009.08.09 | 2009.08.02 | 2009.07.12 | 2009.06.14 | 2009.06.07 | 2009.05.31 | 2009.05.17 | 2009.05.10 | 2009.04.12 | 2009.04.05

Link to web log's RSS file

WinkWinkWinkWinkWink

Worth a look:Laughing

15a.JPG

Worldcat - online directory or libraries worldwide

KissKissKiss

Website of Karen Harrington, a very witty girl and author of 'Janeology'

SmileSmileSmile

Karen Harrington's blog about the adventures in the life of yet another writer and reader - alert all media





Thank you for visiting Laughing